Tag Archives For: vegetarian

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of food memoirs about people who are really into food. The more offbeat the food is, the better. They love their offal and bone marrow. I like food memoirs but I’d like to read one that actually has food that sounds good. I want to read one that doesn’t take numerous cheap shots at vegans. I want to read one that doesn’t make me feel bad about donkeys.

I’ve read Finding Ultra before but it is a good place to start with vegan memoirs. Rich Roll was a 40 year old former college athlete in the worst shape of his life when he decided to take control of his diet. His wife was into healthy eating so he decided to listen to her and almost accidentally became an ultra-endurance athlete.

“Committed” is a bold, offbeat, globe-trotting memoir that shows how the most ridiculed punching bag in high school became an internationally renowned crusader for the most downtrodden individuals of all — animals. This irresistibly entertaining book recounts the random incidents and soul-searching that inspired a reluctant party boy to devote his life to a cause, without ever abandoning his sense of mischief and fun. “Everyone has a tense moment in their career that makes them wonder, how the hell did I get into this mess?” writes Mathews. “For me, it was when I was dressed as a carrot to promote vegetarianism outside an elementary school in Des Moines, and a pack of obese pig farmers showed up and peeled off slices of bologna for kids to throw at me.”from Goodreads

“The Bloodless Revolution is a pioneering history of puritanical revolutionaries, European Hinduphiles, and visionary scientists who embraced radical ideas from the East and conspired to overthrow Western society’s voracious hunger for meat. At the heart of this compelling history are the stories of John Zephaniah Holwell, survivor of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and John Stewart and John Oswald, who traveled to India in the eighteenth century, converted to the animal-friendly tenets of Hinduism, and returned to Europe to spread the word. Leading figures of the Enlightenment among them Rousseau, Voltaire, and Benjamin Franklin gave intellectual backing to the vegetarians, sowing the seeds for everything from Victorian soup kitchens to contemporary animal rights and environmentalism.” from Goodreads

“Vegetarians differ from omnivores not just in their eating habits but also in their psychology, personalities, friendship choices, even their sex lives. Extensive studies from around the world show that they vote differently, take different jobs, and have brains that fire differently. This research also provides insight into why people who consider themselves vegetarian may not really be vegetarian at all, and why so many fall off the vegetarian wagon.

Veganomics is a fascinating journey through the science on vegetarians and vegetarian eating, shedding new light on how and why people eat the way they do, and what impact their dietary choices can have on the world around us. Be forewarned: after reading this book, you may never look at vegetarians the same way again!” from Goodreads

This one may journey a bit into the “Ooooh, vegetarians are weird…” category. I’m not sure but I’ll check it out. I’d also like to recommend it to the fella who recently took my order for a specific breakfast sandwich “without meat” who responded, “Do you still want the bacon on that though?”

“From the golden cups of Aztec emperors to the ice-cream dishes of U.S. presidents, Vanilla has mystified and tantalized man for centuries. The only orchid that produces an agriculturally valuable crop, vanilla can mask unpleasant tastes and smells, but also makes pleasant tastes stronger, smoother, and longer lasting. Because it has over four hundred separate flavor components, choosing premium vanilla beans is as complex as judging the aroma and taste of fine wine. Vanilla finds its way into over half of all dessert products sold worldwide, as well as the finest perfumes, well-known brands of rum and vodka, and even Coca-Cola and Pepsi.” from Goodreads

This isn’t a vegan book per se but vanilla is my favorite scent and flavor and I can’t think of a meat dish that uses it so it gets to go on the list.

The world is starting to align itself against him. He lives with me. His father has recently gone vegetarian because of his diabetes.

So the husband is trying it – with caveats. He doesn’t want to be vegan. He isn’t promising that he’ll never eat fish. I’m sure there are more but I just nod.

He says that when he doesn’t eat meat he feels lighter and cleaner. He is having troubles with energy though. I gently explained that that happens to new vegetarians because they don’t eat enough calories. He didn’t just eat some meat. He ate large quantities at a time. Just taking out meat at dinner easily cut 1000 calories from his diet. He doesn’t need to replace them all but he needs to replace more than he is.

Yesterday he told me that he ate some eggs before his workout and he felt better. “Protein, hah!”

“Eggs are more calorie dense so you got more energy out of a similar volume of food than just vegetables alone. Protein doesn’t break down and give energy easily. Biochemistry, hah!”

He told me to quit being a doctor. I take that to mean quit contradicting his notions with science.

So for Valentine’s Day I set him up with another woman – a nutritionist. She is a vegan so she is well versed in vegetarian nutrition. She can help him with his energy questions and tell him what I’m telling him but it will be real because she’s not his wife.

Thanksgiving is one of my absolutely least favorite holidays. It is all about the food and I pretty much can’t eat the food.

Last year I rebelled. I made my own stuffing (to eliminate the chicken fat and turkey bits and broth) and gravy. I made enough stuffing to share last year but most people didn’t try it so this year I am making a personal pan stuffing and I’m guarding it like a hobbit with a ring.

[edamam-recipe-recipe:1]

This is the Most High Holy Vegan Gravy Link. I have shared this with other vegetarians and there has been rejoicing. I make it with 1 cup of vegetable broth and one cup of almond milk instead of water. It is enough to make you like Thanksgiving.

Z’s back this weekend. Welcome to part 2 of Eating like a Normal Human!

Today for lunch she had a sandwich. I think her main sandwich familiarity comes from Subway where she gets a lettuce and black olive sandwich. We can recreate that at home. I had her make the sandwich. Disaster ensued when she put her toppings on one piece of bread and then tried to flip it over onto the empty bread. We reassembled and tried again with putting it together right. Then I had to explain lining up the bread so it was all going the same direction. After that she didn’t have the logistics of real sandwich eating down so she ate the lettuce and olives.

Dinner for us was stir fry with noodles. If you watch enough of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution eventually you just have to make the stir fry. I kept out some of the veggies from the stir fry for Z. I didn’t think the ginger-garlic sauce would increase her love of veggies. I gave her a sampler plate with carrots, grapes, and green beans (the hits of last week) and added some lettuce, snow peas, and pistachio nuts. The new stuff wasn’t as big of a hit as the old stuff. But, there was no screaming! She just sat down and started on the beans. She did ask why we continued to force her to eat vegetables like she suspected this was a dark plot against her. How right she is!

Later I’m making baked apples stuffed with raisins and a brown sugar – cinnamon sauce. She had asked for apples earlier. I was surprised since last week she declared she didn’t eat apples. She told me over dinner that she only eats apples if they are made at a store. She doesn’t eat homemade apple stuff. If we can just get her over the idea that homemade food is inferior to store bought we’ll be on a roll.

But so far so good. At least we didn’t have to look at the screaming mucus monster over dinner again!

Grounded for having to be yelled at too many times for kitty chasing this morning.

I’m working on cooking real live meals again. I get very easily distracted and then I cook things that only have to have water added and microwaved. I’ve been reading the running blogs and those people are seriously into their oatmeal. I’m ok with oatmeal as long as it is instant maple and brown sugar with raisins on top. That’s not what these guys are into. This morning I decided to try it.

Heather’s Real Oatmeal

3/4 cup oats
1.5 cups water
Microwave these for 3 minutes (so far so good – see above for how good I am at adding water and microwaving)
Mush up one banana and mix it in. Taste. Make face.
Add heaping spoonful of peanut butter for taste even though I hate peanut butter that isn’t coated in chocolate. The runners add peanut butter. It is good for you. Stir. Taste. Make face.
Add rest of box of raisins that I find in the back of the cupboard. Try to break up stale raisin clumps. Taste. Better but still not enough flavor.
Check to see if anyone is looking and drizzle on maple syrup. Stir. Taste. Much better. Resolve to wean myself off the maple sugar additive as I develop a taste for other flavors of oatmeal.

I’m also making up a big pot of crockpot chili. It is in the crockpot since I’m using tomatoes that I froze during the summer and I figured the crockpot would melt them nice. So far I have tomatoes, some chili powder, 1 can of green chiles, a can of beans, and a bag of soy ground fake meat in there. I’ll probably add some corn or something else when I’m ready to eat it.

I’m going to make up a batch of Meatless Sloppy Joes to have ready and waiting for me in the fridge. I also bought a bag of steam and mash sweet potatoes. I shall steam and mash and save for a side dish to the sloppy joes. I also like my sweet potatoes to be sweet so I may have to hide the maple syrup.

The only problem with this whole plan is that I tend to want something different if I have whole meals pre-made. Repeat after me. I will eat all this good food I made even if I’m craving macaroni and cheese!

I’m a quiet vegetarian. I’m not the type to get in your face about eating meat. I’m not going to go off when you tease me about being vegetarian. I do have leather stuff (especially around horses) but I’m finding myself drawn more and more to leather alternatives. But I am just going to have to go off on a rant here.

On Saturday the SO and I went to an outlet mall. I love shoes. I especially love ridiculously high heels that I can’t walk in. I’m the kind of person who pets shoes when I walk past displays in the mall. I’ve cut down on my high heels because I don’t have that kind of lifestyle and because the SO is shorter than me. (Nicole K. once said that the best thing about divorcing Tom C. was that she got to wear heels again. I understand completely!) Lately I’ve been wearing my paddock boots with just a bit of heel and I’ve been insanely happy about that so I knew I was about to have a heel buying breakdown. Anyway, I found a pair of synthetic Easy Spirit ankle boots with a heel. There was one pair in my size and width and they were marked down from $70 to $19.99 so obviously they were begging to come home with me and I obliged them. Then we went to the men’s shoe store.

He was trying on shoes. I heard the cashier talking to another customer about what the shoes were made of. Here was the part of the answer that freaked me out:

“…take the ligament from the hip of a horse and peel it like you’d peel an onion…”

At the same time I’m hearing, “Do you like these shoes?” in my right ear so I missed the rest of her explanation. I think I pointed at his shoes and said they were made of horses. He looked at me like I’d lost my mind and said that they weren’t. I pointed at the guy checking out and said that his were. I might have been a bit incoherent. It wasn’t a huge scene but considering my temperament it was the equivalent of standing up and yelling, “Soylent Green is people!” The SO freaked and asked the lady helping him to make sure that no horses were harmed in the making of his shoes. I remember hearing him whispering something about how we recently buried a horse obviously as an explanation for why I was melting down in their store. No horses were killed for his shoes – just calves.

This started a whole discussion between him and the sales lady about cows. She used to be vegetarian as a kid because they raised cows at her house and they were her pets so she wouldn’t eat them. But, as an adult she’s gotten over it. Well yippee for her. It is ok if she doesn’t personally know her food?

Over time I see myself going farther and farther towards the vegan end of the spectrum. I don’t know that I’ll ever officially label myself but I think it is hard to know about the issues involved and blithely ignore it. Why should I freak out when there are horses involved and not when there are cows?